Let Me Down Gently
by vontramp
Summary: "I'm asking this beyond professional courtesy." Cosima nodded, swallowing back the lump in her throat and flicking one nail against another in her lap. She watched as tears brimmed against light colored eyelashes, threatening a dangerous crescendo were they to fall. "Just go, s'il vous plait." Delphine enlists Cosima's help with an unrecorded patient, leading to a complex romance.
1. Chapter 1

"Fuckin' hell." Looking over her shoulder to find the dean of medicine sauntering in the opposite direction, though well within earshot, Cosima nudged the girl sitting opposite her, garnering the other woman's attention and arching her eyebrows violently in inquiry. "Doctor Bitchfit wants to see me at the end of my shift."

"Do not call her this," Helena whispered from their right, digging in her messenger bag for a second candy bar. "She is pleasant lady." Cosima stifled her laughter, coughing a few times to cover her amusement when Sarah's hazel eyes met her own, glaring readily. Refocusing her gaze on the salad in front of her, she stabbed a carrot with her fork as she gathered her words.

"Sure, she's a little," Cosima paused, wriggling her hands before her as if trying to gain purchase of her thoughts through the movements, "aloof, but she's -"

"Who's aloof?" The bright, if suspicious voice behind them caused all three women to turn, identical eyes meeting straight across bangs and a brought-from-home lunch.

"Bitchfit," Sarah replied, as precisely the moment Cosima uttered, "Cormier." Alison rolled her eyes as she settled into a seat at their table, pulling a sandwich cut into triangles from her paper bag, in addition to several smaller containers, each categorically separated by their place on the food pyramid. Helena reached across the table for the red jello in front of the fourth woman, only retracting her hand when Alison smacked it sharply and shook her head to discourage the blonde.

"Imagine that," she finally spoke again, after opening and rearranging her lunch to her liking several times, "the rogue clone has issues with the new hospital authority. I, for one, am shocked. I certainly didn't see this coming." Cosima chewed carefully, lifting a hand to cover the grin teasing at the corner of her mouth, while Helena's raucous laughter rang out across the cafeteria, encouraging many of the other patrons to stare in their direction.

"Piss off," Sarah murmured, slipping her straw between her teeth to keep her from further retaliating more harshly. Her defensive mechanisms had kicked in strongly, provoking her to lash out, not atypically; despite her cool exterior, the meeting arranged with the dean of medicine plagued her thoughts, and she found it far easier to shut down instead of opening up. Though her eyes rolled unconsciously as her pager went off, she was silently grateful for the opportunity to leave the table with a legitimate excuse. "Girl versus train," she explained, taking a last sip from her drink before gathering her tray. The three others at the table nodded, giving various levels of sympathy as they waved her off, settling back into their own lunches once she'd exited the cafeteria.

"What is her problem with Cormier?" Alison queried, biting harshly at the end of a celery stick and slapping Helena's hand a second time before pulling her jello more closely to her.

"Maybe it's the fact that Sarah has unexplainable authority issues and a dislike for lack of control that rivals yours Ali, but I'm just shooting from the hip there," she shrugged, popping a grape into her mouth. "I've never had a problem with Cormier, but I mean -"

"Damn it, Helena. Just take it!" Alison burst out, effectively cutting the third woman off. Cosima's hands dropped immediately at the exclamation, her head tilting slightly as she laughed, seeing the blonde's fingers slowly inching towards Alison's jello for the third time. "I don't know why I don't just pack two containers."

"I would like two," Helena said, bobbing her head in affirmation as she licked the metallic paper covering her pilfered snack.

Cosima's laughter only intensified at the look of sheer frustration coloring the familiar face before her, hair pulled into a tight ponytail and secured with an elastic headband. Gathering her trash onto her nearly empty tray, she clicked the lock button on her phone, seeing that her lunch hour was nearly finished. "I've got to get back to pathology, so, um, why don't you two try not to kill each other while I'm gone, okay?" Alison's glare grew in power, but she released a sigh and her body deflated as she nodded. Helena simply quirked a crooked smile in response as she tore apart a third packet of sugar with her teeth, pouring it on top of the red gelatinous dessert secured firmly in her right hand.

* * *

"Je l'ai sous contrôle. Je vais la figure. Ne vous inquiétez pas." Cosima lifted her eyes from the microscope before her, settling her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose and leaning back on her stool to look through the glass windows of the pathology lab. Scanning the hallway quickly, hazel eyes met a landscape free from movement and she shook her head quickly, sure she was hearing things. "Dr. Niehaus?" The presence of a hand on her shoulder had her heart beating wildly in her chest when she jumped back from the contact, trying desperately to evoke a calm exterior. "Je suis désolé," the blonde immediately replied, taking a step away from her colleague and settling into one of the unoccupied stools; she inhaled deeply before speaking again, carefully observing the woman just out of arm's length. "I have a favor to ask of you."

"Okay," the brunette drawled out slightly, cocking her head to the side and taking in the nervous posture of her superior. "Okay, yeah. Totally. What do you need Dr. Cormier?" The dean of medicine reached into the pocket of her lab coat, retrieving three vials of blood and silently placing them atop one of the piles of paperwork littering the desk. Cosima tilted her head in the opposite direction, flashing a small smile toward the French woman and chuckling softly. "You do know that the hospital pays me to do this sort of thing, don't you? You don't have to proposition blood testing as anything more than professional courtesy. It's not like, some super-secret -" Delphine's features twisted uncomfortably and the hands resting in her lap had begun visibly fidgeting around the same time the brunette's began gesticulating in the open air between them. A flash of recognition severed the playfulness teasing behind Cosima's eyes, and she inhaled roughly, lifting one of the vials of blood and quickly scanning the information on the side. "Jane Doe," she read out loud, nodding twice for good measure. "So it _is _some super-secret -"

"Oui," her boss cut her off quickly, "and I would be appreciate your discretion." Her accent made her frustration just that much more evident as the harsh ending syllable of the last word cut through the air and anchored itself in the other woman's chest. The blonde stood without another word, exiting the lab quickly and leaving the other doctor reeling.

Without her consent, Cosima's mind immediately began racing, plugging ridiculous potential situations into her head each time she found her gaze fixated on the samples inches away. As she went through the motions of the rest of her day, printing results for the patients she'd already been assigned, she somehow managed to develop more and more quixotic theories surrounding the three vials of blood still settled against the research for her second dissertation. A groan slipped over her lips as she massaged her temples, the overactivity of her imagination sending dull, aching throbs through her skull.

"Hey," she heard from across the lab, the voice hidden by computers and microscopes and sending her nervous system shuttling towards a second bout of irrational anxiety at being blindsided again. "Do you want me to run those samples?"

The brunette's eyes widened, her prefrontal cortex suddenly shutting down and leaving her without a plausible excuse for her stuttering. "Um, no. No." Scott regarded her carefully, but elected to remain silent, watching as her hands spun dangerous webs before her, trying desperately to grasp at some semblance of a grammatically correct, semi-plausible lie. "No," she finally repeated a third time. "Dr. Bowles asked me to run them, because she has some totally radical feminist protester patient who is requesting an all-female team." Even as the words fell over her lips, she knew the lie was weak; she'd never been a particularly adept liar, and she found herself wishing that Sarah, the far more proficient of the two, was in the laboratory, rather than halfway across the hospital running trauma in the emergency room. Scott was well aware of her views on feminism, and even deigning someone as "totally radical" was a stretch for the dreadlocked doctor. Thankfully, for all involved, the man simply shrugged, bidding her a good night and quietly exiting the pathology lab, leaving Cosima slumped over her station, whispering "stupid, stupid, stupid."

When she'd finally recovered from the embarrassment of such an unfortunate lie, she began running the testing Cormier had asked of her, murmuring a quiet "shit" each time results flashed across her screen. Gathering the pages as the printer spit them out, she logged off of her computer, and removed the blood vials from view, hiding them at the back of the bottom drawer of her station.

"Dr. Cormier?" she called, knocking on the open door softly, as not to startle the slightly older woman, who seemed buried deeply in her own thoughts. "I have the results you requested." The blonde released a tentative breath but waved Cosima in, gesturing toward one of the chairs between them. "Jane Doe has a high lymphocyte count, and high CRPs and ESRs." She knew the differential on someone with results such as these, and the darkness crossing her superior's features evidenced that she was just as painfully aware. "Um, do I need to send these to one of the departments, or –"

"Non," she heard, the response quick and sharp-tongued. "I will handle it." Despite her limited knowledge of French, Delphine's words triggered a memory from earlier that day, when the blonde had spoken those very same words in her native language. "Do not look further into this until I ask it of you, Dr. Niehaus. I'm asking this beyond professional courtesy." Cosima nodded, swallowing back the lump in her throat and flicking one nail against another in her lap. She watched as tears brimmed against light colored eyelashes, threatening a dangerous crescendo were they to fall. "Just go, s'il vous plait," she whispered, dropping her gaze toward the results splayed out before her.

* * *

Sarah scrolled through the local news website on her phone while waiting for the three identical women she spent lunch with each day. Frustrated, she threw her phone onto the table and bit angrily into a fry when Alison sat down opposite her, watching her with a bemused expression. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Pressing both hands to her temples, she inhaled sharply before collapsing back against her chair. "Have you heard from Beth today?"

"She's out of town at some conference. She and Art drove up yesterday morning, and they'll be there through the weekend. Why?"

Sarah's face scrunched in confusion, mimicking Cosima's as she sat down and felt the tension between the other two. "Wow. Wow, yeah. No offense guys, but you are giving off some majorly bad vibes right now." She reached between her sisters, setting a cup of jello at the last empty seat at their table, a preemptive strike against Helena's vendetta towards Alison's lunches. She pulled the top off of her tea, swirling the bag absentmindedly with a single eyebrow quirked in Sarah's direction, watching as waves of bewilderment rushed off of her petite frame.

"I thought I saw Beth in the ER earlier," Sarah began explaining, running her fingers through her hair. "Her hair was curly, but when I called her name, she completely ignored me. I figured there was a shooting or something, and she was investigating it."

"She's out of town. I just told you that." Alison pulled her suit jacket more tightly around her torso, as if trying to contain the anger building beneath the surface. She opted to begin unpacking her own lunch, rather than continue, and face another blow up with her sister; their relationship was volatile at best, destructive at worst, and after a morning of reading over malpractice suits, she frankly wasn't in the mood for confrontation.

"Then who in the bloody hell was that?"

"You mean _her_?" Cosima pointed across the cafeteria, seeing a new, yet still familiar face moving toward the lunch line, nervously scanning the crowd. Their eyes met and the woman immediately looked away, focusing her gaze on the tray in front of her. The curls cascading down the back of a loose t-shirt covering an almost identically petite frame was enough confirmation, even without Sarah speaking. "I have no idea."

* * *

**AN: And so it begins. This chapter was a set up for what is to come, and further chapters will obviously have more Cophine interaction. Please, by all means, let me know what you think so far!**


	2. Chapter 2

"I mean, like, what am I supposed to do Scott?" The young man watched as his friend paced furiously back and forth across the linoleum flooring in the research library, papers ruffling each time she spun on the spot, opening her mouth and then closing it again. "I can't just walk up to this girl and say, 'Hey, we look a lot alike, so I think you might be one of my genetic identicals,' can I? Obvs not." Her hands were gesticulating more fervently than he'd yet ever seen, and his mouth continuously mimicked that of a fish while he tried to simultaneously formulate words to calm Cosima down and listen to her still incessant ramblings regarding her encounter in the cafeteria. "There isn't exactly a precedent on this, so it's not like I can google "how to approach someone you think may be your clone when you're unaware if they're aware of the existence of clones,' right?"

"You never know. There may be a support group - or something - Clone Club: So You Think Your Faces Are Too Similar To Simply Be Related." Scott's insertion of humor in that moment prompted the overactive brunette to still for a moment, collecting herself before a wide grin pulled at her cheeks. "Or you could always troll forums for twins who've been separated at birth, as long as you skip through the posts about how they're upset they never got to trade places as kids or whatever," he chuckled, glad to see his friend's mood brightening. "You'll figure it out."

"Great Scott, you're a genius!"

"Because I haven't heard that joke before," he grumbled, shaking his head with a slight smile as he returned to his desk, not expecting Cosima's arms to fling tightly around his neck before she ran out of the lab, nearly bowling over two agitated nurses. She skidded to a stop in front of the elevators, bouncing on her heels while she waited for the doors to open.

"Impatient, non?" Her feet flattened against the floor and remained there as a flush crept up her neck, the heat obvious as she attempted to maintain a cool exterior. She shrugged noncommittally, but fought the urge to keep her limbs moving as the red numbers a few feet above her moved at a sloth's pace. "Did you discover something earth shattering while in the library?" Cosima met the woman's gaze, noting a teasingly arched eyebrow. "Because if you are planning on stripping off all of your clothing and running through the lobby shouting _eureka_, I do believe I missed the interdepartmental memo."

The familiar ding of the elevator saved her from an immediate answer, and both women passed through the open doors, moving to press the first floor button. Cosima pulled her hand back quickly, as though she'd been burned when their hands brushed, but her superior either did not notice, or chose not to address it. "It's nothing like that," the brunette chuckled, the blush moving more quickly up to her cheeks, prompting her to drop her gaze to her boots and send prayers to Darwin's spirit that she would escape this conversation unscathed. "I just, I mean, like -"

"You don't have to explain Dr. Niehaus." _Darwin pulls through once again_.

"Can I actually ask you something?" Delphine's light eyes lifted, linking with those a shade or two darker than her own, and though she hesitated, eventually, she nodded. "Can we drop the whole 'Dr. Niehaus' thing? It kind of always makes me feel like my dad is standing right behind me, and that kind of always makes me feel awkward." The elevator's bell rang out once more, announcing their arrival on the first floor of the hospital, where they would soon part.

"If not Dr. Niehaus, then -"

The brunette's eyes flared playfully, but she extended her hand in a feigned gesture of professionalism regardless. "Cosima," she offered, holding onto her superior's hand just a moment longer than perhaps appropriate, steadily maintaining eye contact, "and I know you've read my personnel file, so if you wanted to hold hands, all you had to do was ask, you know?" She tilted her head slightly to the side, signature grin in place, before separating their palms and heading toward the emergency room, hoping she would be able to catch her sister in one of the rare lulls of the department.

* * *

"You've got to be out of your bloody mind, Cos! This is never going to work," Sarah whispered, angrily adjusting the hospital gown that had pulled apart in the back to show her butt.

"Wow, yeah. If you'd just _shut up _and keep your head down, we'd be fine," she hissed back, approaching the nurses' station, her eyes lighting up and a smirk tugging at her lips when they arrived. "Hey Lucy," she drawled out, her west coast accent played up in full force. The younger girl's cheeks flushed immediately, and she whispered out her own greeting. "I was wondering if you could help me find this woman's room. She was wandering around outside of path, you know, and I guess the medications they have her on have made her a little _confused_." The double entendre didn't pass unnoticed by the nurse, whose face burned even more brightly.

Lucy's fingers rushed over the keyboard, though her eyes didn't frequently part from Cosima's, as she tried to hide a small, shy smile. "Ms. Fornier is in ICU, room 321. You'd better get her up there before Cormier finds out she's gone missing." The mention of their boss caused the sisters on the other side of the desk to exchange a look, Sarah running fingers through her now curled hair as her eyes silently sent more questions than Cosima could possibly answer in the impending elevator ride.

"Thanks Lucy," the dreadlocked woman grinned. "I owe you one." Pulling gently on her sister's arm, she sent a wink towards the nurse, who had nearly curled herself into a ball of embarrassment, tinged only by what could be determined as desire.

"You slept with Nurse Lucy? She's not even gay, yeah?"

Stepping into the elevator and pressing the button for the third floor, the other woman grinned, her dimples making an appearance against porcelain cheeks. "She was that night," Cosima offered, laughing as Sarah extended her hand for a high five, before pulling on the scrubs they'd hidden in Cosima's briefcase.

Far sooner than they anticipated, the doors opened a second time, and looking up, both women noticed they weren't yet on the third floor. Sarah's arms were stuck through the top of her uniform, leaving her black bra on display as Dr. Cormier entered the small space, hiding a look of amusement and saying nothing.

"It's totally not what it looks like," Cosima nearly whispered, her hands beginning to spin wildly in the air until Delphine caught them, holding her employee's fingers quite still.

"I wasn't even going to ask. When it comes to you girls, I've learned that not asking is normally the best approach." She crossed the elevator, gently tugging at the bottom of Sarah's scrub top, pulling it down and adjusting it with a level of intimacy the other woman was unaccustomed with. She barely murmured a thanks, still holding tight to her initial impression of their boss, despite the friendly gesture. "Dr. Manning, Dr. Duncan asked for your assistance on a trauma case that came in earlier this morning, a TBI she'll be going into surgery on later. She requested that you review the case with her before hand," she offered, ignoring the tension in the fifteen square feet of space they all occupied. Sarah nodded quickly, pressing the button for the fourth floor and exiting almost instantly, though she threw a quick glance toward her sister, mentally asking for information as soon as Cosima was able to retrieve it.

The silence stifled the remaining two women as the elevator moved down to the third floor, both walking through the doors as soon as they opened. Delphine turned, effectively impeding the brunette's progress, a single eyebrow arched. "You know, despite your _personnel file_," she grinned, referencing their earlier conversation, "you're far more brilliant than you're given credit for Cosima." The slight alternation of the pronunciation of her name sent a flare up the woman's spine and rendered her temporarily speechless, leaving her only to stare up until green eyes, tinged with gold. "I was hoping I would be able to keep Miss Fournier from you and your sisters until I had more answers." She nodded, her vocal capabilities still lacking severely and her brain not yet wrapping around which direction this conversation would veer off into – given that she'd already imagined tens of possibilities. "I must ask that you do not yet approach her, medically or otherwise. She's not ready just yet."

They were right, she automatically intuited. Beth had found many of their clones, through some as of yet unknown fashion, and it seemed strange that Fournier had slipped through the cracks, given that Beth had managed to unearth Katja and the other Europeans with relative ease. Her last name, however, continued to stick in the back of her mind, for reasons she couldn't pin down, and the lack of knowledge was nearly as frustrating as a badly drawn deck of cards during the Dungeons and Dragons games she'd taken up with Scott and a few of the other lab technicians.

"I'm sure you have a lot of questions, Cosima." And there it was again, the shocks meandering down her vertebrae and leaving her physically frozen. "I cannot answer them now, but I will one day."

Without her consent, her natural sassiness kicked in as a defense mechanism and she scoffed. "Yeah, and one day I'll get you completely baked." She folded her arms against her chest, watching as her boss' eyes flickered dangerously and she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth before recovering.

"Stay away from Miss Fournier's case for the time being, and you can get me, as you say, _completely baked_." Hazel eyes widened, unsure whether to trust the promise, but before she could open her mouth to question things, Dr. Cormier stepped aside, moving down the hallway in a trail of clicking heels, a flowing lab coat, and the slightest hint lavender.

"Wow, okay. Yeah, no, wow." Cosima's extensive language failed her as she leaned back against the wall, trying desperately to focus on nothing more than the mental shopping list she had for movie night at Felix's loft.

* * *

"Did you bring the -"

"Michele Chiarlo Nivole Moscato D'Asti? Yes, Alison. I wasn't chancing that I would be the first intentional murder of the Hendrix household." Felix bit back a laugh from the counter, where he sat rolling two joints with careful precision, having picked up his new sister's knack for more clandestine forms of drug paraphernalia.

"And do we have enough refreshments for the evening?" Alison questioned, littering coasters along the length of Felix's coffee table, despite the already evident water marks littering the wood there.

"You know Cos always brings at least three bottles just for you, so you can calm your turtleneck, yeah?"

The dreadlocked woman in question extended her palm to the man next to her, who placed an impeccably rolled joint between her fingers before turning around to grab several wine glasses and a few tumblers, lining them on the kitchen island. He hurriedly popped the cork on Alison's moscato, placing the almost full to the brim goblet atop one of the coasters she insisted on. A frustrated puff of hair blew the straight across bangs framing Alison's cheeks upward as Cosima lit the joint in her hand, inhaling steadily and feeling the warm buzz filter into her limbs, making her sister's neuroses slightly more bearable.

"So is it just us tonight, or are Helena and Rachel gracing us with their presence?"

Cosima pulled her phone out of her pocket, the vibration jolting her thigh; Felix raised an eyebrow questioningly but she brushed him off as she unlocked the device. _Cosima, I need you to come into the hospital, s'il te plait. It's important._

"Helena is on call overnight in the NICU, and Rachel had a brain surgery that was going to run late, I think," Sarah offered, lifting her glass of bourbon and water, four parts to one, respectively.

_I'm a little high right now, to be perfectly honest. Do you still want me to come in?_ Her fingers moved across the small keyboard of her phone with precision as she typed back her response. Years of writing papers while higher than her valedictorian securing grades had taught her fingers to ignore the buzzing in her brain and react accordingly.

"What a pity," Felix quipped from the kitchen, still leaning against the counter he and Cosima shared. "I certainly was looking forward to Rachel's charm and contagious enthusiasm this evening."

_I wouldn't ask if it weren't important. _"Um, guys?" Cosima said tentatively, clearing her throat on reflex. "I've got to go. I just got called into the hospital."

Sarah's face scrunched in confusion and she eyed her sister carefully, as if attempting to detect a lie on the other woman's part. "What Cos, did one of the microscopes explode or somethin'? You're high as a bloody kite. You won't be worth shite by the time you get there." The other brunette simply rolled her eyes, passing the remainder of the joint to Felix and gathering up her bag while stumbling out apologies as she slid through the iron door.

* * *

"Dr. Cormier?" Cosima tapped the older woman's arm as she shrugged on her lab coat, hoping the eyedrops she'd _borrowed _from one of the medication carts had successfully hidden her bloodshot eyes. "Dr. Cormier?" The woman shook her head, pulling her forearms more tightly against her chest and refusing to turn and meet the other woman's eyes, so naturally, Cosima maneuvered her way around the awkward stance, finding hazel eyes brimming once again with tears the dean would not allow to fall. "Wow, okay. No, come here," she whispered, ignoring the blonde's initial protests and pulling Delphine directly against her chest, provoking a startling sob to escape from the typically pulled together woman. "It's okay. Whatever it is, it'll be totally okay. We'll figure it out, all right?" She felt a weak nod against her dampened shoulder, and continued to run her hands over her boss' shaking shoulders. "I need you to tell me what you need me to do though, or I can't help Dr. Cormier."

"Delphine," she whispered, her voice muffled by the collar of Cosima's lab coat. "At this point, a first name basis seems appropriate, non? I've practically ruined your sweater."

Despite the gravity of the situation, Cosima chuckled, holding the woman more tightly against her, afraid if she let go, the blonde would fall to pieces a second time, and given that the first occurrence was heart wrenching enough, she elected to avoid a possible repeat performance. "Delphine," she murmured, the name falling off of her lips like familiar lyrics to a song she'd known since high school, "what do you need me to do?"

She felt, more than heard the exhausted inhale against her chest, and unconsciously tried to pull the woman even closer, though it seemed impossible. "For now, I need you to pretend as though this never happened," she began, the words piercing directly through Cosima's heart, "because this is a far cry from the professional appearance I hoped to give off when I was offered this position." She pulled out of the embrace, though her palms remained resting against her employee's biceps. "Further than that, I need your research skills, and your discretion. The woman whose samples you were investigating has taken a turn for the worse, and I need to determine a new course of treatment."

The brunette's mind began reeling, her neurons firing far more quickly than her hands could gesticulate, though she remained wholly silent, save for a few incoherent mumblings. Finally, as her mouth, brain, and body all caught up with one another, she shifted her gaze upward, finding a set of hazel eyes staring down at her with a bemused expression, despite the circumstances. "What treatment options have you explored so far?" was the question she eventually landed on.

"I'll give you a copy of her patient file on Monday morning, d'accord?" Everything in Cosima's mind screamed a violent, vehement _no_, because once presented with a puzzle, she was one to dedicate every spare second of her time to unraveling the mystery, but instead, she nodded. "Merci, Cosima," she husked out, her voice thick with an as of yet unknown emotion, but once more, the pronunciation of her name with the slightest of accents had the brunette swooning unwillingly. She wasn't one to fall quickly, if she did at all. If anything, Cosima had a tendency to pull women in with her charm and then keep them at arm's length once the emotions became too visible. The jolt just beneath her skin and the unwitting flutter in her chest was frustrating, and made her desperately want to separate herself from her superior, "sticking to the science," as Sarah had so often reminded her to do. Yet another part, a part that was a hindrance and an annoyance for someone who clung tightly to logic and tangible logic, craved more touches, as light as they were.

When strong, slender arms wrapped once again around her shoulders and a kiss was placed to each cheek, it was all Cosima could do to nod and exit Dr. Cormier's office gracefully. As she walked back to Felix's loft, she mentally listed correlations between her previous marijuana usage and her biological reactions to Delphine's touch, trying her hardest to convince herself that it was nothing more than inconsequential chemical reactions. Even as she walked up the stairs and slid the heavy iron door back to meet three of the people closest to her heart, she knew she had failed.

* * *

**AN: I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and haven't been too scarred by last night's episode! As always, I would love to hear feedback. Also, as a side note, I don't have a beta, so any mistakes are fully my own doing.**


	3. Chapter 3

"Dr. Niehaus!" The shrill voice permeating the pathology lab pulled Cosima's attention from the microscope in front of her, sending a hazel eyed gaze directly to the doorway where it landed on Lucy's face, pulled tight in terror and radiating an unsure nature. "The patient in room 321 is coughing up blood, and we can't get her O2 stats to regulate." Lucy, despite their brief fling, was well aware of the brunette's medical education, which did not include patient care in any form or fashion.

"Page Dr. Cormier," she commanded, remembering Delphine's command to maintain a sizeable distance from the woman until given further instruction. "Ms. Fournier is her patient." Her words fell over her lips much more harshly than she intended, and even after averting her eyes, she could see Lucy's shaking frame in the doorway through her periphery.

"We paged Cormier twice already, and the on-call ICU physician is already running a code. Cosima, I don't know what to do." Lucy had only graduated from her nursing program earlier that year, and her professional innocence was still obvious. Her hands were clasped before her, a silent plea for understanding and assistance, and despite Delphine's fervent request, Cosima quickly removed her gloves and strode across the lab, breaking into a run once her heels hit the hallway, bypassing the elevators entirely in favor of the stairs.

"Page her again," she called over her shoulder. "Keep paging her until she answers. I don't care if you have to call her cell, her apartment, or her cousins in France. Get in touch with Cormier immediately, understood?" She didn't see the redhead nod as she flung the door to the stairway open, tightly grasping the banister as she took the steps two at a time. Finding herself on the third floor, she could hear the frantic murmurings of the nurses who seemed far out of their depth, though Cosima knew she wasn't much better off. Pausing before she entered the room, taking in the four nurses surrounding the petite woman coughing into a metallic dish, she pulled a mask over her face and a scrub cap over her dreads, hoping the pathetic attempts at disguise would keep the woman from recognizing anything more than similar colored eyes.

"I need a chest tube tray, and a scalpel," she spoke as loudly as she could, the mask distorting her enunciation. When the charge nurse opened her mouth, Cosima cut her off quickly. "I _really _don't care what scalpel at this point, okay?" Her gaze finally flickered to wide, terrified hazel, and she had to fight back the tears biting at the corners of her own eyes. She ran a soothing hand over the dark, curly hair of her patient, murmuring platitudes before slipping on a new set of gloves and lifting the woman's hospital gown, keeping their eyes connected and waiting for a nod of confirmation that she was almost immediately granted. Mentally searching for the procedure for inserting a chest tube, her mind's eye flicked through journals and textbooks and internet research, her nearly photographic memory speaking quietly in the back of her head. _Numb the area, anesthetize, one inch incision between the ribs, and insert. _She watched thankfully as the charge nurse carefully placed the scalpel in her hand before a second nurse pushed a syringe into Ms. Fournier's IV, her eyes blinking more and more slowly as the medication coursed through her veins. Povidone-_iodine_was slathered across the woman's rib cage, mere inches from her heart, and Cosima found a quiver in her hands that had not yet been present; taking a deep breath, she placed two fingers on the rib bones she would slice between, the world quieting as she remembered her brief rotation in the morgue as part of her pathology training. She couldn't treat it any differently, or else the nervous energy would reappear and her hands would once again unsteady themselves. She cut carefully, dropping the scalpel onto a tray on her left, unaccustomed to the typical workings of hospital rooms and ripped open the plastic protecting the chest tube before inserting it and hoping for the best. When the canister attached slowly filled with thick, red liquid, and the beeping of the numerous machines slowed, finally garnering her attention, she let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding while Danielle inhaled one she hadn't been able to.

"Merci," she whispered, her voice hoarse and barely audible through the buzzing between Cosima's ears. The next voice, however, was far louder and perfectly clear.

"Dr. Niehaus, a word?" Dark dreadlocks flew through the air as she spun to meet the less-than-pleased expression of her boss and she simply nodded, pulling off her mask and gloves and dropping them into a biohazard can before exiting the room. "I asked you to stay away from Ms. Fournier's case. I gave you Jane Doe's file in the hopes that it would detract your attention from Danielle, and clearly, I overestimated your ability to follow instructions."

Taking in a deep breath, Cosima closed her eyes, intent on not causing a scene in the midst of the bustling nurses around them. Her hands flew upward moments before her mouth opened, but Delphine caught them, holding them steady. "You know, for someone who called me brilliant, you must think I'm totally idiotic. I know she's Jane Doe, Delphine." Her words were roughened, harsh, and jackhammering away at the façade of indifference her boss' features held. "Why would you –" she paused, shaking her head and willing the tears building behind her eyelids and threatening to burst through the damn of her eyelashes to dissipate. "How could you keep that from me? Why is she even here?"

Delphine entangled their hands more tightly, squeezing into the brunette's palms as if silently asking for understanding. "I cannot answer that now."

"Seriously?" Cosima burst, angrily separating their intertwined fingers and taking several steps backward. "You can't ever answer anything, can you? I mean –"

"There's too much at stake, Cosima," she whispered, the three syllable name shortening into nearly two. "There is a lot at stake for Danielle, for me, for you and your sisters –" Her gaze dropped to her feet as she slipped her hands into her pockets, feeling the cold seeking out her digits as soon as she'd lost contact with the warm palms she'd held just seconds ago. "I will explain, I promise, but I cannot do it here." Darkened hazel eyes bore into hers readily, not willing to so easily drop the subject that had plagued her mind for the past seven days, a constant mental reel of each page of Danielle's file flickering through her memory with no pause button that she could find. When she'd arrived back at Felix's, she'd drank herself into a stupor, passing out on the couch and waking well into the next afternoon. Each night she would drag her tired form into her living room and light up, having to call her dealer more than once to replenish her supply, which did nothing but allow her thoughts to further fixate on the medical mystery before her. She refused to give up so easily, and it was clear that Delphine recognized her look of determination. "Let me check Danielle's vitals, and we will talk – outside of these walls." She pulled her prescription pad from her pocket, scribbling furiously before ripping the paper and folding it into quarters perfectly, pressing it into Cosima's waiting hand.

* * *

The small shred of paper burned through layers as the brunette tried desperately to keep her twitching fingers away from it. She had memorized the address hours ago, eyes flitting over the perfectly looped cursive, a testament to the undeniable beauty of the woman whose hand had penned the words, just as much as it was a testament to her inherent need for control and a veneer of perfection. Cosima could feel the paper tucked into the pocket of her loose cardigan, but the fallen, tattooed tree made its presence known regardless, searing through the crocheted material, past the tight cloth of her tank top, and even further, burying itself beneath several layers of the doctor's dermis. She knocked lightly at the door before her, her knuckles rapping against wood that seemed unspectacular, nothing out of the ordinary. It was a simple mahogany door, in a nice, if quiet apartment complex, coated in a silence that was surprisingly unnerving. Leaning in, she could hear music, an English band, if Sarah's extensive knowledge of across-the-pond rock had ensnared itself within her at all, though it wasn't nearly as harsh, or seemingly political, as the music Siobhan had raised her sister on. Hesitating for a split second, after realizing it was nearly impossible for her percussionate knuckles to be heard over the electric guitars, and what she was sure were screaming thoughts beneath blonde waves, she twisted the aged doorknob, sticking her head in and scanning the room cautiously.

"Delphine?" The woman in question was settled against the window frame, one foot tucked to her chest and the other dangling into the cool night air, possibly brushing against the ironwork of the fire escape. Cosima shook her head, releasing the frequent thoughts of Delphine's long legs, forever framed by perfectly fitted jeans and accentuated by well-chosen heels. The blonde immediately tossed the cigarette, only half-smoked, into the chill of the late hour, the guilt building in her gut evident on her face and in her lack of words, which she stumbled over instead of greeting her employee. "It's totally fine," Cosima laughed, raising her hands in surrender in an attempt to put the other woman at ease, though the slight flush of her cheeks was endearing in the best way, and thought provoking in the very worst. She crossed the room quickly, lifting a joint from her sweater pocket and settling herself against the opposite side of the window, extending her hand in a silent request for a lighter.

"I shouldn't be smoking," Delphine quietly chastised herself, though her hands automatically cupped the flame the brunette provided, inhaling deeply once her cigarette was lit.

"Who knew you were such a _rebelle Dr. Cormier_?" she heard in response, the teasing lilt of Cosima's accent provoking a series of chuckles. "The oh-so-straight-laced dean of medicine is a nicotine fiend. Who would have thought?" The blonde reached across the length of the window sill to playfully slap at the free hand gesturing in the air, but found her fingers caught in warmth, soon tangled against soft palms. The air in her lungs seized violently as a rolling quake shivered through her frame, though the tartan blanket wrapped around her shoulders was shielding her from the breezes circulating through the window. The chill she felt, one that could not be analyzed or compartmentalized or calculated in any scientific form or fashion muddled her thinking, and she found it far easier to focus on the biology quite literally at the tips of her fingers. Delphine was not unaccustomed to suitors, but she had, from a very early age, managed to shut off any emotional connection between herself and the world around her. Despite her psychology professors insisting that the field were transforming into one of science, with neural responses and chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin playing such large parts in much of their work, she refused to see it as such. Science had been calculatory, much like her relationships – things must be measured, and carefully observed, preferably in laboratory settings. But Cosima's hand in her own, tracing and retracing the double helix against her skin, folded those two words together so dangerously, she wasn't sure she could recover from the dichotomy.

Thankfully, the voice that had managed to pull her thoughts so often from the dredges of the plagues broke through her mental berating once more, causing her to lift her eyes slightly upward as she took in another drag of the nuisance she knew she shouldn't have tucked between her fingers. "You said we would talk," the other woman murmured, her voice hoarse with exhaustion, and it was in that moment that Delphine took note of the lavender circles beneath brilliant hazel eyes, and the creases just beginning to form at the corner of them. It seemed as though this particular patient's case was weighing just as heavily on Cosima as it was on the blonde, and while it seemed unfair, a flare of comfort rose in Delphine's chest – a flickering flame of knowledge that she was no longer battling a Hydra on her own.

It still offered no simple way to begin the conversation, however, and once more, the dean struggled with her words, wondering fruitlessly if maneuvering her hands in the air as Cosima did would help her gain purchase of her thoughts. "Danielle Fournier," she began, a silent sigh hanging in the air between them, "is, of course, Jane Doe. She was flown into the institute about a week ago, because my colleagues in France could find no logical explanation for her symptoms." The brunette nodded, keeping her generally overactive vocal chords quiet, hoping her lack of speech would provoke further extrapolation on her boss' part. "They were unaware of her –" she paused a second time, "- her biology. Before Dr. Leekie was expatriated from the project, and the country, he informed me when I took his position, of the connection between you and your 'sisters.' She, too, is a genetic identical, but she is not self-aware, as the five of you are."

Puzzle pieces were beginning to fall into place, and Cosima mirrored her earlier nod. She felt, however, even though the edges of the puzzle in question had been formed, there was still a gaping hole left in the middle, far more difficult to piece together, particularly when she had no photograph to glean from. "Delphine," she whispered, squeezing the woman's palm gently to ensure her attention, "why are you so desperate to find the cure for her?"

The tears so rarely found brimming against light eyelashes made another appearance, and with both hands occupied, one with a cigarette, and the other with a grounding weight of softness and warmth, the blonde couldn't hide away the liquid staining her cheeks, nor did she feel as though she wanted to. "She was my best friend, until we moved to different cities for university. When my parents heard she was sick, they called me, to see if I could help." She was surprised when the slick feeling of Cosima's palm against her own, the comfort within the touch, the gentleness of the other woman's presence was coldly yanked from her body, sending a chill fluttering over her once more.

"So this –" Cosima gestured, gesturing angrily between the two of them, her hand flopping mercilessly against the night's air, "was you recovering a relationship you lost when you took off to _Paris_." The mocking accent she used to indicate the city's location was evident, and the words, like knives, sliced straight through any semblance of calm that remained after Delphine dropped her own, emotional personification of a nuclear bomb.

"_Merde_, Cosima!" she retorted immediately, her now free hand pushing blonde tendrils over to one side, only increasing the volume of the curls and freeing her quickly angering features from their soft constraints. "_Je ne sais même pas ce que c'est_! I don't know if there is an _it_ or a _we _or anything of that sort. There shouldn't be – that I'm well aware enough of – but I _know_, oui, je sais, que vous n'êtes pas Danielle. I don't want you to be Danielle. I don't _expect _you to be Danielle." Her breaths were heaving, lungs struggling against the fever running through them, the flame igniting in her chest and making each pulmonary cell fight to continue on. "I removed her from Paris because of Aldous Leekie. He knows about you, about all of you, and he's searching relentlessly to find his, how you say, _white whales_."

"Totally, wow. Yeah. Do you realize how wonderfully, spectacularly, selfish that is Delphine? You just put all of us in danger." Flashes of Oscar, Gemma, and Kira all filtered through her mind, before the pang in her heart brought a b-roll of puffy jackets, strawberry Jell-O, black leather jackets, and golden badges. "You basically brought Leekie to our front door and gave him a fucking _key _Delphine!" The blonde's fingers fidgeted before her, idly twisting and turning the pack of cigarettes in her hand before she pulled one from the container and lit again, allowing the film of the smoke cloud her head for several moments, the nicotine seeping into her cells to still her shaking hands, and the action to give her just a few more moments to think before she reacted. "I can't believe I'm still sitting here," she scoffed, moving to unfurl herself from the windowsill. "I can't believe I ever trusted you, or – or – "

"Or what, ma cherie?" Delphine's fingers wrapped loosely around the brunette's wrist, silently begging her to stay, while Cosima's face remained uneasily neutral. Flicking the only half-smoked cigarette out of the window, the taller woman stood, still attached by just fingertips to the quivering doctor before her. "You _can _trust me," she whispered. "Je vous le promets." Taking a chance, she brushed the fleshy pad of her index finger upward, gauging the response as she moved at a snail's pace. "And, if I'm reading this correctly, which I may not be, after spending years studying cells rather than taking a Gestalt approach and considering the whole, you _can _fall." The spot between Cosima's eyebrows furrowed, and the blonde, her eyes raking steadily over every portion the brunette would offer, noticed how the texture there varied slightly from the rest of her smooth, porcelain skin. "If you want to, I promise to catch you." The brunette scoffed, ignoring the levels of dopamine rising in her skull, and shaking away the flooding of fuzzy, unscientific, completely illogical feelings lightening her head and muddling her thoughts. "I want to catch you, Cosima."

The scientist within her was gone, thrown away haphazardly like her laboratory coat at the close of an unendingly long shift. The brunette surged forward, throttled by what she'd deemed her "genetic predisposition" to rash decisions. As her lips met Delphine's, far softer than she would even dream to imagine and warm with unsung words, she melted; she knew far better than to allow sexual chemistry to distract her, but the slightest hint of nicotine hanging from the blonde's mouth and the way slender fingers pressed into her hips to brace, not to hold captive, had her doubts fluttering out of the window as butterflies took their place in her stomach.

* * *

**AN: And the plot thickens. :) I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! I love hearing back from you, so a huge thank you to those of you who've reviewed so far! ChasingGhosts - I hope this cleared up a few of your questions! :) x Aimee**


	4. Chapter 4

"Where is it that you are?" Delphine's voice, far softer once their implosion had subsided, carried over from the kitchen, where she was consciously preparing two mugs of tea; an unspoken exchange had occurred not long after their lips met, a curious combination of warmth, electricity, and undeniable magnetism. The corner of the blonde's mouth quirked up gently, remembering her laboratory classes during her undergraduate studies in university, mixing chemicals with true care, hoping to provoke precisely that reaction in a graduated beaker; she had never thought to assume that she'd encompass that molecular magic against soft lips that had a tendency to smirk unabashedly when accompanied by a tilted head. She noticed Cosima shake her head, an eyebrow quirking in question at the slightly altered euphemism Delphine had attempted, so she scanned the lingual side of her, venturing a second time. "Where did you go? In your head, I mean."

A slight chuckle bubbled out of the brunette's chest as a flush crept up from her neck, settling against her cheeks as she ducked her head; she paused before responding, weighing the potential embarrassment were she to answer truthfully. "I was thinking about covalent bonds."

"I'm not sure if I should be offended," Delphine smiled, crossing the living room to the window that they'd yet to unoccupy, referencing their kiss from only minutes before.

"Oh no, no, you shouldn't!" Cosima automatically replied, her hands flying wildly in the air to halt the thought process she believed had infiltrated the blonde's mind. "I was actually thinking about us, but I should totally rein that in, because I mean, I don't know what you think, and I mean -"

"Non." The single French word cut off her ramblings and a firm kiss pressed against her temple slowed the wild beating of her heart. She was aware of tachycardia, but never in the case studies or medical journals she'd read, had she found a case prompted by gently spoken foreign words and delicate touches. "I would like to hear this theory." Delphine's eyes shone with curiosity, her fascination with the older woman in front of her, despite her occasionally childlike predisposition, clearly evident in the lighter green hue imbedded in her irises. She knelt down, linearly aligning their gazes and tilting her head to the left, to indicate that her attention, and surely so much more, was Cosima's for the taking. Setting the two steaming cups of tea to the side, she crossed her arms over the brunette's knees, resting her head atop the back of her hands and patiently waiting for the woman to extrapolate.

"Yeah, okay," she sighed, the resignation in her voice coated in a tentativeness that Delphine found endearing, if not slightly worrisome. "Covalent bonds are the chemical bonds that share electrons, right?" She received a curt nod in response, with a glimmering smile to accompany it, and any nervousness buzzing through her limbs calmed, bolstering her confidence before she continued. "The atoms are unstable until they share electrons, developing a stable configuration." The blonde's small smile widened, almost imperceptibly, but the gears turning beneath her wanton curls were not only following her colleague's train of thought, but rushing past the station they'd come to, and mentally determining the destination. "It just - " Delphine nodded again, encouragingly, her hazel eyes reflecting more and more of the green rimming her pupils. "It just made me think of how much that mimics romance, you know? I mean – people meander around the planet, unsure of themselves, unstable at best and radioactive at worst, if you continue with that metaphor, right? Like, protons are the building blocks of us, as people, as individuals. They are what makes us who we are, yeah?" She noticed her inherent application of Sarah's sentence concluder, chuckling softly before continuing. "But it's not until you find someone else, whose instability matches your own - "

"Someone who you can bond with," Delphine continued, her sternum lighting up and an airiness encompassing her lungs as she realized she was far more in tune to Cosima's ramblings than she'd initially posited. "Someone you can share things with," she whispered, her voice uneven and shaking with each syllable, though her accent coated her nerves with a semblance of confidence she didn't possess, "even, and perhaps most importantly the negative things – the electrons that determine what _type_ of person you are, oui?"

"Yeah," the brunette breathed out, pleased that her tangent had been encapsulated and understood by the woman resting against her thighs, her essence, in and of itself, nearly perfection personified. "Somehow, sharing those things about you, bonds you to that other person, and suddenly, all at once, you're no longer alone, but you're connected to another person, and you somehow become -" Her hands flailed in the air, not encumbered by a joint or a mug of tea, as she searched for the correct word to conclude her hypothesis.

"You become more yourself," Delphine finished for her, "oui? It all stabilizes." Cosima nodded, slowly, before sliding off of the window sill, careful not to upset the cups with her movement. "_Mais_, this is all simple observation and theorizing, is it not?"

The brunette mirrored the other woman's positioning, settling back on her feet, her knees bent beneath her, though her hands traveled from her own bubble into the dean's, fingertips gently pressing into firm thighs. "It's a theory I'd like to test." Leaning forward slowly, without the pretense of marijuana or wine to cloud their thoughts, she tentatively pressed her lips against the corner of Delphine's mouth, feeling, more than hearing the sharp inhale her presence elicited. "What's a theory without an experiment?" she continued, her lips brushing against rosy cheeks, the only portion of herself she allowed motion. "So, in conclusion, I would _really _like to make crazy science with you."

Despite her inability to determine many euphemisms and innuendos, the blonde was well aware that they were trudging into dangerous territory, and were their _experiment _to continue, she would not be willing, or able to retreat. "Cosima," she breathed out, the words much lighter than she originally intended for them to be. Any authority in her voice had floated out of the window with the clouds of smoke they'd coated themselves in, a reprieve from the actual reality their relationship existed in – a professional relationship that she didn't know if she could compromise. "Cosima," she repeated a second time, this time forcefully enough that the brunette pulled back, scrutinizing her features through thick rimmed glasses. "I am your boss."

"And I," the California native drawled out, "am totally amazing at keeping secrets, Dr. Cormier."

"It would be inappropriate." The protests were weak, and her voice, even weaker.

"So is knowingly allowing one of your employees to use illicit drugs in your presence, but that certainly didn't seem to be an issue earlier tonight." Delphine's form deflated, and she shook her head, trying desperately to cling to thoughts of logicality, far from the warm sensations of Cosima's palms still resting against her thighs. "You can't hide behind science forever, you know." The final coercive phrase was all that it took, as the words bulleted through her chest, fragmenting as they pierced skin and sending holes through her heart, once frozen, guarded, and safely tucked away from the gripping hands of others.

Delphine flew forward, her lips somehow malleable despite the force, and she pressed her body as closely to the brunette's as possible, allowing the heat to burn against her, snaking underneath her top and residing low in her stomach. She was sure, beyond sure, that Cosima was some otherworldly cosmos, radiating light and warmth and pulling lesser beings toward her, to absorb all that she had to offer. As her tongue traced Delphine's bottom lip, it seemed as though each brush was emblazoning promises into the roof of her mouth and sealing secrets against the back of her teeth; her hands were pressing whispers into her legs, until they traveled upward, ensnaring unknown facts into the messy waves cloaking them from the outside world. When they finally pulled apart, breathless, with heavy chests and sparkling eyes, the tea beside them had ran cold and a shiver ran through Delphine's body upon realizing that their _experiment_ had begun, without her rational consent.

* * *

Walking side by side toward the elevators, the beeper that had taken permanent residence against Cosima's hip blared through the silence of the ICU hallways, and glancing down, she saw nothing more three numbers – _911._

"Emergency in the path lab?" Sarah chortled, disbelieving. "What, did the centrifuge break down or somethin'?" Her teasing was cut short when her own pager bleated, signaling her necessary return to the ground floor for a series of GSWs.

Ignoring her sister's aptitude for repartee, Cosima turned on her heel, moving quickly in the direction of Danielle's room. The closer she got, the faster her feet carried her across the linoleum, seeing nurses bustling in and out of the area, with the only constant presence her eyes fell on being Delphine, barking orders left and right. Scanning the scene quickly, she turned to the closest blue scrubbed body, requesting an intubation tray, her hazel orbs flickering upward for scant seconds in an attempt to calm the frazzled dean of medicine standing across the mattress from her. She then turned her gaze to the person beneath her, with eyes that perfectly mimicked the ones that stared backed at Cosima each and every morning; those wavering jewels were currently wide with fear as Danielle clutched at her chest. "I've got you," she murmured, ripping open plastic packaging and passing it over the blood stained sheets into Delphine's waiting hands. She gripped the fingers of the brunette struggling for breath, leaning in more closely and repeating her words with vigor, trying desperately to keep her thoughts from flitting dangerously. The woman in front of her could very well have been Beth, or Sarah, or Alison, fighting for oxygen and desperately clinging to life. As she watched adept gloved hands move with purpose, her brain flickered again, two floors down to the emergency room, where one of those women was, and another could very well be; she glanced to her pager but saw nothing, though the lack of information did nothing for the bile rising in her throat.

Sudden increments of silence pierced her ears and she finally took note of the steady beeping of the monitors surrounding the three of them, her fingers still tangled with Danielle's, whose eyes poured over with an amalgamation of emotions Cosima spent a moment too long analyzing - gratitude, still tinged in fear, and coated in questioning. It was only then that the dreadlocked doctor realized she wore no mask or scrub cap, and her identical features were on full display, and not just across a hallway or cafeteria. A nurse returned, her presence hesitant in the doorway as she stood with an armful of bedding and new pillows. "Dr. Cormier?"

"We're done here, merci." Her tone was clipped - professional but purposefully detached. She ran a hand through the curls atop Danielle's head, despite them being matted with sweat and containing trace amounts of congealed blood. "I will come to check on you later. You need to rest." An almost imperceptible nod was directed toward the blonde, any smile encumbered by the tube secured down the woman's throat, ensuring she received oxygen despite her failing lungs. "Dr. Niehaus?"

Cosima flashed what she hoped was a reassuring grin in Danielle's direction, squeezing her hand gently before backing out of the intensive care unit room, finding the majority of the individuals gathered around the nurse's station, staring at her unabashedly. She didn't have more than a split second to consider the reasoning before Delphine's left hand, still quivering slightly, settled between her shoulder blades and began leading her down the hallway. The pair stopped suddenly, far from prying eyes and even further into a wing of the hospital very rarely frequented; the block of rooms they stood in the midst of were reserved for long-term care comatose patients.

"It's the most private place I could think to bring you," she finally said, her words struggling from deep within her throat, leaving the hoarseness of her voice to permeate through the almost impenetrable silence.

Were they anywhere else, at any other time, Cosima's quick wit and aptitude for snark would have bubbled over her lips, perhaps snagging themselves on a tooth on their journey out; instead, she circled Delphine, scanning the hallway quickly before reaching for the blonde's hand. "We'll find a treatment," she insisted, though her sentence fell flat, even against her own ears.

"It is not Danielle I want to speak about." Delphine's eyebrows scrunched to meet in the middle, her tongue circling her bottom lip before she chose to speak again. "Beth Childs was one of the police officers in the line of duty shooting." Her cool hand automatically gripped the brunette's a bit more tightly, instilling confidence through her shaking fingers and warm gaze, much as Cosima had tried to do only moments ago. "I thought it better that you heard it from me." Tears brimmed against lined eyelashes and despite her worries, her desperation to keep their relationship behind closed doors and away from the inevitable rumor mill, she pulled the smaller woman close to her chest as a sob wracked Cosima's thin frame; she gathered Cosima tightly against her body, rationalizing that applying pressure to her sympathetic nervous system would calm the brunette, at least minimally.

For years, she had fought against the feeling creeping into her chest cavity, the warmth that came with human contact, with trust that knew no bounds, that did not question motives, but in that moment, the walls she'd carefully crafted in favor of science and of logic fell to the ground. She welcomed the heat meandering through her veins, basking in the knowledge that despite having three sisters in the hospital, despite their "experiment" being in its infancy, and despite the secrets that had already come to light out of necessity, Cosima chose _her _arms to fall into.

* * *

**AN: A bit shorter than my previous chapters, and for that, I apologize, but I figured with the season two finale approaching quickly, a little bit of fluff was necessary for our fandom. As always, if you are so inclined, feel free to leave comments, questions, or criticism. :) I hope you enjoyed!**


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